Rolling train for rolling wire and light sections

ABSTRACT

A rolling mill line for rolling wire and light sections in which the rolling stands of the prerolling and intermediate rolling stages have alternating horizontal and vertical grooved roll pairs. The oval grooves of rolls of one pair are converted by round section grooves of a pair immediately downstream thereof and axially spaced therefrom into a circular section and one or the other of the two grooves can by axial transverse shifting, be brought into or out of the rolling line.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The present invention relates to a rolling mill or rolling line for the rolling of wire or light sections and, more particularly, to a rolling line having a prerolling stage, an intermediate rolling stage and a finish rolling stage, utilizing grooved rolls.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] Rolling lines having prerolling and intermediate rolling stages upstream of the finish rolling stages may have, in these stages, roll stands with respective roll pairs and so-called grooved rolls which shape the workpiece. It is known to provide in such lines (see EP 0 313 930) alternating horizontal and vertical roll pairs and different patterns of grooves and hence different cross sections of the workpiece as rolled by those grooved rolls.

[0003] However, the earlier system does not allow, for example, diversion of the workpiece with a circular cross section at a particular dimension from the rolling line and, as a consequence, may utilize an excessive number of rolls where fewer pairs of rolls could be used.

OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION

[0004] It is therefore the principle object of the present invention to provide an improved a rolling line for the purposes described, i.e. for the rolling of wire or light sections, which enables a more efficient use of the rolling mill components than has been the case hereto.

[0005] Another object is this invention is to provide a mill line for the purposes described which enables advantages of oval-oval rolling sequences to be obtained together with those of oval-circular rolling sequences.

[0006] It is yet another object of this invention to provide a rolling line which is more versatile and efficient than the prior art rolling line described.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0007] These objects and others which will become apparent hereinafter are attained, in accordance with the invention, in a rolling mill line for producing wire and light sections comprising, along a path along which a workpiece is rolled successively, prerolling and intermediate rolling stages upstream from a final rolling stage and having, in the prerolling and intermediate rolling stages at least one succession of grooved horizontal roll pairs alternating with grooved vertical roll pairs with the grooves of each roll pair defining a predetermined workpiece cross section, and wherein an oval groove cross section of one roll pair is followed by a circular groove cross section of a successive roll pair axially spaced from the one roll pair.

[0008] According to the invention, the prerolling and intermediate rolling stages have at least one sequence of a multiplicity of the roll pairs successively engaging the workpiece and having alternately oval and circular groove cross sections.

[0009] The prerolling and intermediate rolling stages have at least one sequence of a multiplicity of the roll pairs successively engaging the workpiece and including a beginning plurality of roll pairs with oval groove cross sections followed by roll pairs having alternately oval and circular groove cross sections.

[0010] According to the invention, the rolling mill sequence or each such sequence terminates in a roll pair, preferably a vertical roll pair, with a circular groove cross section. It is a feature of the invention that at least one of the rolls of at least one of the roll pairs or a roll stand thereof is transversely shiftable into and out of the rolling mill line.

[0011] Furthermore, the workpiece emerging from a roll pair with an oval cross section is selectively directable into a roll pair with an oval cross section or a roll pair with a circular cross section.

[0012] With these features, the oval cross section grooves of the rollers of one pair may be followed by a circular cross section groove of a next roll pair at an axial spacing from the former. As a result, round grooves can follow oval grooves with selected roll pairs of the sequence. Within the sequence, the roll pairs of a first section can each be of one groove type, beginning with an oval groove or cross section and then followed by alternating oval and round or circular groove patterns. The last roll pair of the sequence should only have a circular cross section. According to a feature of the invention, one or the other of the grooved roll pairs can be shifted into or out of the rolling line transversely or displaced by shifting the roll stand. Finally, the workpiece can pass from an oval groove selectively to another oval groove or to the circular groove of a subsequent roll pair with deflection.

[0013] The most important advantage of the present invention is that it enables the advantages of a starting arrangement of oval-oval to be followed by an alternation of oval-circular patterns. The oval-oval sequence enables better elongation in the prerolling and intermediate rolling stages and with fewer roll pairs. The provision of a roll pair of a circular groove section alongside a stand with a roll pair of oval cross section enables a large number of circular section workpieces to be fed to the finishing rolls and in practice, this has also allowed the number of finishing rolls to be reduced. The finishing roll system may be, for example, a single universal rolling mill. A further advantage is that the circular groove section of the roll pair can close less strongly because it is used only to establish the requisite dimension of a circular section workpiece. The total number of rolling stands of the rolling line can be of even number or of odd number with the invention while the number of mill stands limited to oval-circular groove sequences must always be an even number.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

[0014] The above and other objects, features, and advantages will become more readily apparent from the following description, reference being made to the accompanying drawing in which:

[0015]FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a first sequence of groove roll patterns for a rolling line for the rolling of wire or light sections according to the invention, characterized especially by an alternation of oval and circular groove sections;

[0016]FIG. 2 is a view similar to FIG. 1 showing another pattern in which an oval-oval sequence and a parallel circular-circular sequence pattern can be provided;

[0017]FIG. 3 is a diagram of another pattern according to the invention in which an initial oval-circular pattern is followed by an oval-oval pattern with a parallel groove sequence of circular-circular pattern; and

[0018]FIG. 4 is a diagram of a rolling line which can embody these patterns.

SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION

[0019] Referring first to FIG. 4, I have shown a rolling line 10 in which the workpiece 11 is rolled in succession by a prerolling stage 12, an intermediate rolling stage 13 and a finishing stage 14, the latter imparting the final dimensions and shape to the product 15 which emerges as the rolled wire or light section. The finishing stands are not relevant to the present invention which concerns the prerolling stage 12 and the intermediate stage 13 and thus the finishing stand has been shown only in a block form. The prerolling and intermediate stage have alternating pairs of vertical rolls 16 and horizontal rolls 17 or horizontal rolls 18 and vertical rolls 19 and the rolls of each stage merely represent multiplicities of such alternating roll pairs.

[0020] Each pair of rolls has grooves 20 and 21 as denominated only for the roll pair 16 and those grooves cooperate to impart to the workpiece, according to this invention, either an oval cross section or a round or circular cross section. The roll pairs can be provided with shifters represented generically at 22 which allow roll pairs to be moved closer together or further apart in the rolling direction 23 as represented by the arrow 24 or enable the roll pairs to be shifted transversely (double-headed arrow 25) to the rolling line and the rolling direction 23. Furthermore, diverters can be provided to divert the workpiece to parallel lines or to parallel pairs of vertical and horizontal rolls and then back into the line shown in FIG. 4.

[0021] As can be seen from FIG. 1, the prerolling stage or the intermediate stage or both may roll the workpiece in the pattern shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3, these patterns being the cross sections produced by the horizontal rolls H and the vertical rolls V which alternate with one another as defined by the respective grooves.

[0022] Turning to FIG. 1, it can be seen that preshaped workpieces WSR or WSQ of circular or square cross section can be fed to the rolling line WS1 which can represent one sequence of the rolls of the prerolling and intermediate rolling stages and can be but one of several such sequences. Each of the groove patterns of a roll pair can be treated as equivalent to one of the cross sections shown and thus represents the roll pair and the respective roll stand.

[0023] In the sequence of FIG. 1, there is an alternating pattern of horizontal and vertical roll pairs 1H, 2V, 3H, 4V, 5H, 6V, 7H and 8V, the numbers representing the successive roll pairs and the letters indicating whether the roll pairs are horizontal or vertical roll pairs.

[0024] Of these roll pairs, the horizontal roll pairs 1H, 3H, 5H and 7H each have grooves forming oval cross sections and thus are illustrated as ovals in the groove patterns show in FIG. 1. The vertical roll pairs, correspondingly, at 2V, 4V, 6V and 8V, each are of circular groove cross section.

[0025] The round or square workpiece WSR or WSQ enters the first horizontal roll pair 1H and is shaped therein to an oval and then back to a circular section in the following roll pairs and on through the sequence alternating between oval and round, to leave the sequence at a vertical roll pair 8V with a circular cross section to enter the section rolling stands 14 (see FIG. 4).

[0026] The groove arrangement of the rolling line WSI allows the round or wire to be brought out from the line after passage through any of the vertical roll pairs 2V to 8V with the desired shape and an appropriate dimension for finish rolling without the need to pass through further preliminary or intermediate stages.

[0027]FIG. 2 shows a different approach for the rolling line WSII. The preprofiled workpiece WSR or WSQ, which is of circular or square cross section is fed to the line WL which has sequences of alternating horizontal and vertical roll pairs 1H, 2V, 3H, 4V, 5H, 6V, 7H, 8V and of these roll pairs 1H and 8V correspond to those of FIG. 1 and are respectively a horizontal roll pair with an oval groove position and a vertical roll pair with a circular groove position. The last roll pair of the sequence reshapes the workpiece from an oval cross to a round cross section in a circular groove pattern.

[0028] The roll pairs for the sections 2V, 3H, 4V, 5H, 6V and 7H are all oval sections and may alternate in the direction of elongation of the oval. These roll pairs may, as has been described in connection with FIG. 4, be shifted transversely to the rolling line WL as represented by the double headed arrow P1 and into and out of this line. Instead of this shifting action, the workpiece can be deflected as indicated by the single head inclined arrow and via a deflector that shown at 26, to rolls with circular cross section grooves. From each circular section set of rolls, the workpiece can be extracted with the desired shape for further processing, e.g. in the finishing stands at 14.

[0029] The arrangement according to FIG. 3 differs from that of FIG. 2 in that in the rolling train WSIII, the first few roll pairs alternate as shown in FIG. 1 while the remainder of the roll pairs correspond to the pattern in FIG. 2. 

I claim:
 1. A rolling mill line for producing wire and light sections comprising, along a path along which a workpiece is rolled successively, prerolling and intermediate rolling stages upstream from a final rolling stage and having, in said prerolling and intermediate rolling stages at least one succession of grooved horizontal roll pairs alternating with grooved vertical roll pairs with the grooves of each roll pair defining a predetermined workpiece cross section and an oval groove cross section of one roll pair is followed by a circular groove cross section of a successive roll pair axially spaced from said one roll pair.
 2. The rolling mill line defined in claim 1 wherein said prerolling and intermediate rolling stages have at least one sequence of a multiplicity of said roll pairs successively engaging said workpiece and having alternately oval and circular groove cross sections.
 3. The rolling mill line defined in claim 1 wherein said prerolling and intermediate rolling stages have at least one sequence of a multiplicity of said roll pairs successively engaging said workpiece and including a beginning plurality of roll pairs with oval groove cross sections followed by roll pairs having alternately oval and circular groove cross sections.
 4. The rolling mill line defined in claim 3 wherein each of said sequences terminates in a roll pair with a circular groove cross section.
 5. The rolling mill line defined in claim 1 wherein at least one of the rolls of at least one of said roll pairs or a roll stand thereof is transversely shiftable into and out of the rolling mill line.
 6. The rolling mill line defined in claim 1 wherein the workpiece emerging from a roll pair with an oval cross section is selectively directable into a roll pair with an oval cross section or a roll pair with a circular cross section. 